Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site mtgzz.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!bbnccv!bbncca!wanginst!decvax!bellcore!petrus!sabre!zeta!epsilon!gamma!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtgzz!leeper
From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: TEEN WOLF
Message-ID: <1162@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 15-Sep-85 23:54:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1162
Posted: Sun Sep 15 23:54:48 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 00:42:05 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 52


                                 TEEN WOLF
                      A film review by Mark R. Leeper

          Capsule review:  This is the third worst film I have
     seen released to a theater this summer.  It does even less
     with the premise than I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF.  The story
     doesn't make sense, the makeup is poor, the script is riddled
     with cliches.  This one is a real howler.

     It has been 28 years since Michael Landon starred in I WAS A TEENAGE
WEREWOLF.  Even at the time it was pretty mediocre fare.  It would be pretty
surprising if in these days of more and better fantasy films if a filmmaker
couldn't improve on the theme with an updating of the concept.

                                    SURPRISE!

     TEEN WOLF strongly tempted me to walk out.  This is a weak, stupid, and
banal comedy.  It is much less a remake of I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF than it
is a second sequel to THE SHAGGY DOG.  Michael J. Fox was quite enjoyable in
BACK TO THE FUTURE.  But Fox as "The Wolf" is a dog.  Once he gets the power
to transform at will and it makes him the superstar of his school, he
becomes insufferably conceited and dull as a character.  Rather than examine
how somebody would cope with this odd fact about himself, the filmmakers
think what the audience wants to see is a guy in a hair-suit break-dancing
and doing handstands on the top of a speeding van.

     And how does the world react to the discovery that there are real
werewolves?  Well, the kids in the local high school think it's real nifty
and the rest of the world seems totally oblivious to the first werewolf ever
to reveal himself to the public at large.  And such fresh and original
questions the script asks.  He has the choice of getting the girl next door
who has loved him since he was small or the shallow sexpot he has been
drooling over.  Can you guess which one he picks?  His basketball team was a
loser until he started using his lycanthropic powers to make them win.  Can
they get along without his powers and defeat a nasty opposing team?  Can you
guess whether they can or not?

     The werewolf makeup is something else again.  Visually there were no
clues as to why anyone associates the transformed boy with wolves at all.
He looks more like Ben Gunn from TREASURE ISLAND than anything even vaguely
lupine.  The makeup is also reminiscent of the (rejected) early sketches for
the apes in the production of PLANET OF THE APES.

     TEEN WOLF joins THE HEAVENLY KID and WEIRD SCIENCE as the worst of this
summer's major fare.  All three get -2 on the -4 to +4 scale and, by the
thinnest of margins, this is the best of the three.

					Mark R. Leeper
					...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com